


Two Solitudes

by eiluned



Category: Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Angst, Clint Feels, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, First Kiss, First Time, Kissing, Natasha Feels, Natasha backstory, Partnership, Pre-Avengers Movie, Talking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-25
Updated: 2013-02-25
Packaged: 2017-12-03 15:36:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/699826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eiluned/pseuds/eiluned
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two loners, two dark pasts, one night that is not as lonely as the ones that came before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Solitudes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [EuphoricSound](https://archiveofourown.org/users/EuphoricSound/gifts).



> For EuphoricSound, because I love her and would hug her if she didn't live on the opposite side of the country from me. Thanks to Amanda and SidheRa for their beta reading and suggestions, and thanks, too, to EuphoricSound for brainstorming the initial idea with me on gchat. Feedback is always greatly appreciated.

_Love consists in this, that two solitudes protect and touch and greet each other.  
-Rainer Maria Rilke _

* * *

Clint Barton wasn't the easiest person to read. He had perfected impassive expressionless, but Natasha had come to notice subtle differences in his poker faces.

The one he was wearing when they got back from a particularly nasty mission in Zagreb was new, one that was strained around the edges, like he had stretched a poorly-fitted mask over his features, and one false move would make it snap.

So after debriefing, she told Coulson that they needed a few days off and went to catch Barton before he dove headfirst into training in an effort to drown whatever was bothering him in pain and exhaustion.

"Come on," she said, and he furrowed his brow at her.

"Come on what?"

"Come on," she repeated. "You're coming with me."

"Where are we going?"

He stood there with his gear bag in his hand, staring at her from behind that fraying mask, and she could see pain in his eyes, pain that he didn't want her to see and probably didn't want to acknowledge himself.

Instead of answering, she walked over and took his arm, pulling him toward the door. "Wait, where the hell are we going?" he said sharply, pulling back against her grip.

"Clint."

Surprise slipped through his mask; she realized it was probably the first time she had called him by his first name, or at least the first time since her deprogramming six months before. She didn't know if he had heard, but she remembered calling out his name during the nightmarish process, grasping for the one thing that was familiar in her new world, the one thing that made her feel safe.

But she fell back on calling him Barton because it felt safer if she held him at a distance. She wasn't sure how to deal with the feelings that he stirred up within her; she felt like a girl when he grinned at her, blushing and breathless, and that was dangerous.

She took him to her apartment, a tiny one-bedroom place in Hell's Kitchen, because it was both closer and nicer than Clint's apartment in Bed-Stuy. It was his first time in her space; she had always guarded it closely because it was the first time she had ever had her own space, something that was truly hers that she didn't have to share or that was only lent to her.

He left his gear bag by the door and stepped out of his boots before wandering around the living room, taking in the small, neat space. She watched as he peered at the titles stacked on her bookcase, the Russian novels, the classic science fiction that intrigued her, reading the mishmash of titles, his fingertips lingering on a couple of stray romance novels as he hid a smile. He inspected the couch next, backed up against the exposed brick wall, with its dark grey upholstery and the bright blanket she had bought in Shiraz a year before she defected and had smuggled into her quarters in Russia.

The little kitchenette didn't garner much attention, though she imagined he would rummage through the fridge when he thought she wasn't looking. "The bathroom is through there," she said, pointing at the door to her bedroom, "If you need it."

Giving her a nod, he disappeared. Natasha was surprised to find that it didn't feel as odd as she had expected to have him in her space. It wasn't in her nature... scratch that, it hadn't been in her nature to get close to anyone, but she was a different person now, and she did like Clint. They got along well, and they worked very well together, better than she had with anyone else. They complemented each other, picking up each other's slack, watching each other's backs. They talked, too, little hints about their shadowy pasts, and it was almost a relief to be able to tell someone else about those things.

A few minutes after she had heard the toilet flush and the sink cut off and Clint still hadn't emerged. She thought he was probably snooping in her medicine cabinet, but when she silently opened the door, it was to find him sitting on the edge of her tub, sniffing her bottle of shampoo.

Stifling the urge to laugh, she leaned against the door frame and crossed her arms over her chest. "Barton, that's a little creepy," she said.

He jumped so hard that he dropped the bottle into the tub and had to scramble to pick it up. "Jesus, you nearly gave me a heart attack," he said, snapping the bottle shut and putting it back. "And anyway, you... smell nice, and I wanted to see if it was your shampoo. So sue me."

That made her raise her eyebrows in surprise and sent a little bit of heat to her cheeks. "So is it the shampoo?" she asked mildly.

"Uh," he said, rubbing the back of his neck. "Yeah. Smells like coconut. And by the way, I'm not sure kidnapping me and then silently following me around your apartment lacks creep factor, Romanoff."

She couldn't stop the huff of laughter that time. "You like creepy."

"You're projecting your own preferences onto me. I happen to like women who don't kidnap me."

"And then you lose interest in them after approximately eight seconds," she retorted, giving him a little smile.

He returned it, the corner of his mouth curling up at the half-true jab. "Ouch. Do you have any burn cream? That one stung."

"Check the medicine cabinet, if you haven't snooped in there already."

They had Chinese food delivered after she showered, and they ate sitting on the rug in the middle of her living room; her kitchen table only had a single chair. Clint disappeared back into the bathroom and took a long shower, and by the time he came back out, wearing a pair of basketball shorts and a white t-shirt, it was nearly midnight.

"'m gonna crash," he said, and it didn't get past Natasha that he hadn't once asked her why she had dragged him here. "Should I take the couch?"

"No, you can have the bed. I'll sleep out here," she said.

He made a few protesting noises that she silenced with a pointed look, and then, rubbing the back of his neck again, he said good night and closed the door behind him.

Natasha curled up on the couch underneath her Persian blanket and tried to let go of the mission. She knew something had happened out of her view, when Clint was finishing the assassination, and it was funny how killing someone when it was sanctioned by a force of "good" like SHIELD was fine, but what she did for the Red Room and when she was on her own was horrendous. It was beginning to occur to her how short life really was, and if she really were to develop a strong sense of ethics like the SHIELD deprogrammer had told her she should, she would have to conclude that killing anyone was wrong.

But either her sense of ethics wasn't that strong yet or maybe she just felt useless if she wasn't hurting or killing or stealing information. The first time that thought had occurred to her, she had reasoned with herself that for SHIELD, she was only hurting or killing people who were actively making life worse for innocent people. It was her code of honor, like Clint's, and as long as she was on the side of angels, she would stick to it.

This mission, though, wouldn't slip out of her conscious mind, and the more she thought about it, the more she realized that it was the thought of Clint that was hanging there, digging its talons into her brain and refusing to let go. That silent, strained expression, pain lurking in his eyes.

He wasn't like her. He hadn't been brainwashed, molded into a remorseless assassin. If circumstances had been different for him, he might have never become so proficient a killer. Maybe he would have been an insurance salesman or a baseball player, something mundane and safe. But this was his life just like it was hers, and she knew that what they did bothered him sometimes.

What surprised her most is the strong urge she felt to help him... help him what? Feel better? That sounded so trite in her head, but it was what she wanted. She hated to see him hurting, and hated even more that he tried to hide it from her. But then she hid herself from him, so turnabout was fair play, she supposed.

She just liked smiling, sarcastic Clint, and she wanted to help him find his way back to the surface.

The problem was, she had no idea how to do that.

She must have finally dozed off at some point because she jolted awake suddenly, hand automatically scrabbling for the gun strapped to her mattress before she realized that she was on the couch and that the sound she had heard was just Clint.

Her blanket fell to the floor when she got up, and the bedroom door opened silently under her hand. He was tangled up in her sheets, and she wasn't sure why that sight made something twist up inside of her. But he was jerking in his sleep, muttering something she couldn't make out -- a nightmare.

"Clint," she said softly, and after she repeated his name a couple of times, he suddenly took a gasping breath and sat up, looking around the room in something like a panic.

"Clint, it's just me," she said, and she watched the film of sleep lift from his eyes.

"N'tasha?" he mumbled, shaking his head a little. "I was... shit, sorry, I woke you up."

"It's fine," she said, moving to sit on the bed beside his feet. "You okay?"

He looked at her in the filtered light of street lamps through her curtains, and she could see that he wasn't. He was fighting to pull that mask back on, but it was falling apart, crumbling in his hands, and before she even thought about what she should do, she had reached out and wrapped her fingers around his hand where it rested on his thigh.

Surprise washed over his expression, and he looked down even as he turned his hand, twining his fingers with hers. The warmth of his hand against hers made her heart beat a little faster, but whether out of fear or... something else, she wasn't sure.

"Tell me what's wrong," she whispered.

Ducking his head, he turned his face away from her. "It's nothing," he said, but she knew it was a lie.

So she did the only thing that made sense right then, in the middle of the night when they were both cold and lonely and uncertain. She pulled the covers back and slipped in beside him.

He leaned back from her a little bit, and she could see the confused look on his face even in the dimness. "Natasha, what--" he began, but she shook her head at him.

"Just lie down," she said, sliding down and pulling the blanket up to her shoulders.

After a second, he lay down with her, going a little stiff when she curled up against him. "Relax," she murmured. "I'm not going to bite."

He let out a huff of breath that was almost a laugh. "Unless I ask nicely?" he said, and she smiled into the darkness. "Natasha... why? I mean, I guess I don't understand what you're asking me."

Pushing herself up on her elbow, she looked down at him, a little frustrated. "I know something's bothering you," she said. "I know your tells."

"But why do you want to know?"

She frowned, teeth worrying her bottom lip. She wasn't entirely sure how to answer that question, and she took a moment to put her thoughts in order. "Because you're my partner," she finally said. "And you're my friend. I don't like it when you're upset."

He looked surprised again, and he pressed his lips together, his throat working as he swallowed. "This last mission. It was just... bullshit," he said, and she lay back down, resting her cheek against his shoulder. "And that on top of ten missions in two months... I'm just fucking tired."

The mission had been a simple assassination. Go in, take out an enriched uranium smuggler, get out, and as far as Natasha knew, it had gone as well as one would expect. She had been running perimeter while Clint dealt with the smuggler, but she had noticed that strained expression on his face when he emerged from the building.

"What happened in there?" she asked, pitching her voice low.

Clint swallowed again, exhaled slowly, his hand twitching a little where it rested against the front of her thigh. "I was on the second floor landing," he said. "You know how it was open to the living area? I was up there in the dark, and Kovač was alone on the sofa downstairs. Had no idea I was there, and the whole house was silent. So I killed him. Arrow through the back of his neck, severed his spinal cord and carotid before he could even react."

He stopped talking then, staring up at the ceiling, his breathing becoming unsteady. Natasha imagined she could feel the pain radiating off of him like heat waves, and she moved closer to his body, tentatively resting her hand on his chest. He caught her hand in his and squeezed it tight, and it was so intimate that it made her breath catch in her lungs.

Her touch seemed to steel his resolve, because he spoke again. "I turned around to go back out through the attic, and there... there was his damn kid. Maybe six years old, a little boy standing in the hallway, watching me while I killed his father. I... I don't think he could see my face; I know he saw the bow, but he didn't react at all. He just stood there and looked at me while his dad died on the couch downstairs. And me... I just put my finger to my lips to tell him to stay quiet, and then I fucking ran."

The words choked him then, and Natasha wrapped herself around him, pressing her forehead against his tightened jaw, gripping his hand as if that would somehow relieve him of the horror of what had happened.

They were silent for a long, long moment, the only sound in the room Clint's ragged breathing as he tried to regain control of himself. She knew why it had disturbed him so much, and she felt a pang of remembered pain from a skeleton buried in her own past.

"When I was fifteen," she said, and he jumped a little at the sound of her voice, "I was sent to kill a man named Drakov. He was the political enemy of someone high ranking in the Red Room. No one ever told me why he needed to die, but then I didn't need to know. I just followed orders, never asked questions."

"What happened?" Clint whispered.

Clearing her throat, she nervously licked her lips. "It was supposed to be simple," she continued, regret like nausea curling in the pit of her stomach. "I slipped into his home when he was supposed to be alone, and I cut his throat while he sat at his desk, just like my orders said. But my intel was wrong. He had two sons and three daughters, and one of his daughters hadn't accompanied the rest of the family on their holiday. I heard a noise and found myself pointing my gun at a ten year old girl."

It was her turn to stop, to fight back the guilt and horror welling up inside of her. Even then, she had been horrified, but that part of her had been buried under so many layers of brainwashing and induced psychosis that it didn't have a chance of informing her actions. Clint shifted a little and put his arm around her, holding her against his side, and that let her control her breathing and the emotional reaction that was threatening to overwhelm her.

"You don't leave witnesses," she continued, her voice a little hoarse. "That was one of the rules in the Red Room. If someone sees your face, you make sure they can never identify you. When the girl saw her father covered in blood and me with weapons in my hands, she started to scream. And I shot her. Couldn't leave a witness."

She only realized that she was crying when she tried to take a breath and found herself choking on it.

"C'mere," Clint murmured, rolling so he could wrap both arms around her, and she hugged him back, pressing her face against his t-shirt.

"Aren't we a pair?" she said after a long moment, when she could breathe again, breathing in the warm scent of his skin.

She felt rather than heard his chuckle, and it made her sigh when he rubbed her back through her thin shirt. Warmth washed over her, and she realized that she liked being close to him. They were more alike than she had first thought; he had listened to her story in the same way she had listened to his. He didn't judge, just absorbed the information and offered comfort. He didn't try to fix her problem, didn't try to talk her through it. They both needed nudges to open up, but they had grown to trust each other enough to share those dark secrets. That made her feel safe.

Lifting her face, she rested her head on his bicep, giving him a faint smile. In the dim light, even this close, his eyes looked dark, rimmed with thick lashes, and she realized with a heavy thump of her heart that he was very handsome. She had noticed it before, of course, but her focus had always been on other things, on doing her job and on watching his back. Or perhaps more accurately, she had purposely focused on other things to avoid that particular distraction.

But here, tangled up together in her bed, there weren't any distractions. He was handsome and made her feel good, and she trusted him enough to lay in his arms and tell him her secrets.

One corner of his mouth quirking upward, he reached up to brush a stray tear away where it had pooled beside her nose. And before she could talk herself out of it, she leaned forward and pressed her lips against his.

He sucked in a surprised breath, his hand cupping her cheek automatically, but she drew back, watching him carefully, before he had a chance to react any more than that.

"Um," he said, his voice a little rough. "You just kissed me."

"Your powers of observation astound me," she replied, and he gave her a full grin, teeth and all.

"I guess a better thing to say would be... Why did you kiss me?" he said, his hand still warm against her face, his thumb brushing lightly against her skin.

"Because I wanted to," she answered deadpan, feeling his muscles shift under the skin of his back. "Should I not have kissed you? I don't think I can take it back, but I can make a note to not do it again in the future--"

"No," he laughed. "No, I'm just... surprised. But I liked it."

Natasha was grateful for the low light because she could feel her cheeks flushing with pleasure. "So," she said, "Can I kiss you again?"

His response was to pull her forward, tilting his head so he could kiss her slowly and thoroughly.

She had no idea how long they lay there together, sharing kisses and gentle touches, and it was something she had never experienced before. She had been in a couple of relationships, but under the eye of the Red Room, nothing had ever come of them, and of course, she had seduced marks over the course of her career, but that was different, was her old life. She had never just curled up around a man and kissed him for the sheer pleasure of it, just because she liked him and was attracted to him.

It felt amazing.

At some point, the kisses trailed off, and she didn't know when but she must have fallen asleep because the next thing she remembered was waking up to sunlight in her window and Clint spooning her, his arm locked around her like he didn't want to let go.

For a long moment, she lay there, feeling warm and comfortable and relaxed, the way normal people must feel when they wake up in the morning in bed, cuddled up with someone they care about. Her still-sleepy mind quickly changed direction at the end of that thought, because she had been very, very close to thinking another four letter word, one that she had always been wary of.

She liked Clint. She cared about him, and she wanted him. That was all she could give right then.

Inhaling deeply, he stirred behind her, nuzzling the back of her neck. "Mm," he mumbled, his arm tightening around her waist. "Your hair smells like coconut."

"Good morning to you, too," she said softly, closing her eyes and smiling.

"Mornin'," he replied, rolling her to face him so he could sink his hands into her hair and bring her lips back to his.

She thought she could get used to waking up like this.

Unfortunately what promised to be an even hotter kissing session was interrupted by a very loud rumble from his stomach.

Natasha fell onto her back, laughing, and he gave her a sheepish grin. "It's your coconut shampoo," he said, rubbing his belly. "It's making me hungry. And... I like seeing you laugh."

A blush rose in her cheeks again, much to her embarrassment, but he just smiled down at her and brushed his fingertips across the apples of her cheeks.

"I have a toaster and I think there's some cereal in the pantry," she said, partly as an actual breakfast suggestion and partly to break the sudden, near-suffocating emotion that had built up in her.

"Sounds great."

She didn't have coffee, his preferred poison, but he accepted a cup of tea with just a little bit of grumbling and a wink that made her heart do a funny little flip in her chest. She had butter but no jam, but she managed to root a jar of Nutella out of a cupboard, and they settled into a comfortable silence as they ate.

"Feeling better?" she asked mildly, licking a smudge of Nutella off of her thumb.

His eyes followed the movement of her tongue, and she stifled the urge to grin. He met her eyes after a second, a little smile curving his lips. "Yeah," he replied. "I am. Still kinda feeling like this whole thing is bullshit, but I'm dealing with it."

"Good," she said, sipping her tea. "Because it is bullshit. All of it, except for the moments that aren't. That's where we have to live, I think. We're letting what we do for a living define us, but I don't think it does. We're more than that."

He tilted his head slightly, looking at her like he'd never really seen her before. "That's a good point," he finally said. "It's just tough to push some of it to the back of your mind. I mean, you know that."

"I do," she agreed softly, reaching out instinctually to touch his hand.

That instinct disconcerted her in the morning light, sitting at her little table. It was different from being curled up in her bed, and she began to doubt herself, doubt her feelings such as they were, and doubt the rightness she felt touching him. Maybe it would be dangerous, to let herself get that close.

But maybe, she thought as he covered her hand with his, she didn't mind a little danger.

Standing quickly, she took both of their empty plates and her mug, draining the rest of her tea as she took the dishes to the sink. As she reached to turn the water on, she heard Clint stand up, felt him come up behind her as she washed off the plates and her cup.

When the plates were in the drying rack and her mug hanging from its hook, she had to turn around, couldn't put it off any longer. The heat of him hovering there, just inches from her back, was maddening. She wanted to touch him but was afraid of it at the same time, and being afraid made her edgy.

But she turned to find him looking down at her, and she leaned back against the edge of the counter just to get a little space to breathe. "Here's my mug," he said, leaning forward so he could put it in the sink.

And then he stayed there, his hands on the counter on either side of her, and she wanted nothing more than to plaster herself to his body and taste his lips again.

"So are we okay?" he said. "With this? With... us? Whatever this is?"

"Do you mean this?" she replied, and feeling suddenly bold, she rose up on her toes and pressed her lips to his, threading her fingers into his short hair as she stroked her tongue against his.

His arms went around her automatically, pulling her close as he kissed her back, and she found that she was glad they had been in bed when she had first kissed him because the delicious shock of his kiss, the feel of his body against hers, made her knees a little weak.

"Yeah, that," Clint murmured when she drew back to take a breath, his hand coming up to smooth her hair back from her face.

The smile that curved her lips was probably silly, and she wasn't used to feeling silly, but his kisses made her feel warm and bubbly inside. She briefly wondered if she was losing her mind or her nerve or something. "I'm okay with that," she said.

"It's not gonna... I don't know, fuck up our work?"

It was her turn to tilt her head and regard him seriously. The thought had occurred to her as she lay in bed with him that morning, that this would change their dynamic. He was a good partner and maybe more importantly a friend, maybe even the first person she had ever trusted enough to consider a friend. But when he had grinned at her from his step-ladder perch on the other side of her tiny table, she felt a sweeping sense of relief that things still felt the same. He still felt like her partner, the guy she had befriended, who cracked stupid jokes just to get her to smile, who shared his coffee on cold stakeouts. She just wanted to kiss him and touch him and get naked with him.

"Do you mean, will I watch out for you any more than I already do?" she asked, raising her eyebrow at him.

That made him give her a goofy smile. "Good point. As long as we don't make out on missions, I think we'll be fine," he said very seriously.

She dragged him into another kiss, and another one and another, and then she dragged him toward her bedroom because she had to feel him against her body again. All it took was one hit and now she craved him like a drug.

When they got to her bed, knees bumping the edge because they were too busy kissing to see where they were going, she caught his arms and turned quickly, pulling him down on top of her. "Oh," he said, wrapping his arms around her back and pulling her up onto the mattress. "Oh, I see how you want this--"

"Are you going to talk the whole time, Barton?" she teased, tugging at his t-shirt.

"I might," he replied, whipping it over his head and tossing it somewhere behind him.

It wasn't like she had never seen him shirtless. She had seen him shirtless plenty of times, but not in this context, not while reading anticipation in his eyes. Her hands skimmed over his warm skin, fingertips teasing at the flat of his belly, palms brushing over the swell of his pectoral muscles. He sighed when she dragged the heels of her hands over his nipples, his eyes slipping shut in an expression of pleasure.

She loved the way he felt under her hands, loved the heat and surprisingly softness of his skin, loved the way his chest hair tickled against her palms, loved the soft sounds he made when she teased his nipples into hard nubs.

"Oh god, that feels amazing," he breathed, "But I've got to get your clothes off."

Sitting back on his heels, he pushed her t-shirt up but quickly got distracted by the fact that she wasn't wearing a bra underneath it. She bit her bottom lip when he cupped her breasts in his big hands, her back arching involuntarily. "...whoa," he murmured, and Natasha let out a bark of laughter.

"You know we made fun of Keanu Reeves for saying that even in Russia," she quipped.

He shook his head at her, still looking more than a little flabbergasted, which really was flattering. "Ha ha," he retorted. "I can't help it. Your tits are so gorgeous that my brain just shut down."

She rolled her eyes at him. "Gee, thank you--ah!"

She didn't have the breath for teasing him any more because he had dipped his head down and scraped his stubble over the sensitive skin of her nipples. "Oh fuck," she gasped, hand coming up to tangle in his hair.

She thought he might make another witty remark, but he just shot a little grin up at her and sucked her nipple into his mouth, teasing it with the tip of his tongue. Her back arched again, desperate for more sensation, and he gently rolled her other nipple between his callused forefinger and thumb.

Before long, she was writhing underneath him, rubbing against the thigh he had between hers. It was so good, felt so amazingly good, and none of her past adolescent fumblings and groping marks could never live up to this. Her breasts were always an object of attention, and she resented that even as she used it to her advantage. They were a tool, a weapon in her arsenal.

But Clint worshipped them and made her feel like a goddess, made her feel like her body was something to be appreciated rather than used.

His hand left her breast, and she thought about protesting, but he slid it down her stomach, under the waistband of her shorts and into her panties. The cotton peeled away from her as his fingers slid lower; she was so wet already that her panties were soaked through, and he groaned softly when he touched her slickness.

A low moan escaped her when his blunt fingers found her clit, and as he began rubbing slow circles against it, she shuddered underneath him. "Do you like that?" he murmured, trailing kisses across the upper swell of her breast.

"Yes," she breathed, tilting her hips so he could have better access.

"Want more?"

"Do you even need to ask?" she said with a breathless laugh.

"Yeah, I do," he replied, giving her a tiny smile that made her heart jump.

Pushing herself up on one elbow, she caught the back of his neck in her hand and pulled him into a kiss, rocking her body into his touch. This, this was why she liked him, why she wanted him; he cared about her, wanted to make sure she was with him every step of the way. "Yes," she whispered against his lips, "I want more."

His smile widened a bit, and he kissed her deeply as he worked her into a shivering mess. She wasn't used to having someone do this for her; she had come a few times with her lovers in the Red Room, but she was used to taking care of herself. But Clint moaned every time she did; he responded to every gasp and jerk of her hips, brushing the tip of his nose against her cheek.

She did protest when he slipped his hand out from between her legs. "Don't worry," he rumbled, her grumbling making him grin widely enough to show teeth. "I'm not going anywhere."

He caught the waist of her shorts and panties in his fingers and slowly drew them down her legs, leaving her biting her lip in anticipation. She watched him toss her clothes off of the bed and settle onto his stomach between her legs, and her thighs tensed when he smoothed his hands over her skin.

"Easy," he murmured, and she rolled her eyes at him.

She didn't know what she had expected him to do, but she hadn't expected him to just dive straight in. Normally she would've expected teasing or something, but then again this was Clint. He decided what he wanted to do and then he went for it, and this was no exception.

Her head fell back onto the pillow when his tongue slipped into her, her shoulders coming up off of the bed as she muffled a shout with the back of her hand. His hums of pleasure vibrated into her body, and she was already shivering when he moved up to lave at her swollen clit.

"Oh!" she moaned, blindly groping over her head for the bars on her headboard. "Oh... god, that's..."

He hummed again, an inquisitive sound, and she looked down to see that he was somehow managing to smirk while still lapping at her. Catching her lip between her teeth again, she held his gaze, shuddering hard when he closed his lips around her clit and began to suck.

"Oh... oh..." she cried, gripping the headboard tight as pleasure coiled low in her body and suddenly sprang loose.

With his hands on her hips, he held her against his mouth, still sucking at her even as she tried to squeeze her thighs together. "Stop, stop," she gasped, reaching down to tug at his hair, and he pulled his mouth away with an obscene smacking sound.

"Too much?" he asked, licking his lips.

"Mmm," she hummed, pressing her hand against her mouth again and shuddering one last time. "Mm, yes. God, you're good at that."

"Why thank you," he said, sitting back on his heels and grinning at her.

When she had caught her breath, she tugged her shirt off and dropped it to the floor. "Okay," she said. "Clothes off. Now."

"Wow, you're bossy in bed," he commented, laughing when she crossed her arms over her naked breasts and gave him a glare. "Okay, fine. Do you want a striptease or should I just cut to the--"

"Oh my god, take your pants off now!"

"Okay, okay," he laughed, crawling off of the bed and shucking his shorts and underwear. "There, you happy?"

"Well, I'm certainly not unhappy," she replied, letting her eyes rake over his naked body; he was toned all the way down in the places she hadn't seen before, from the gorgeous flat of his stomach down to the big muscles in his thighs and calves. "But turn around and maybe I'll be completely happy."

His smirk made her squirm a little, so she pushed herself up on her elbows, making sure her breasts were thrust out, and she raised an eyebrow at him in response. His jaw went a little slack, but he obediently turned in a slow circle, giving her a good view of... well, everything. His ass was nothing short of magnificent, and she had expected nothing less considering how it looked in pants. The strong line of his back, the two dimples right above his ass, the corded power of all that muscle covered by skin banded with tan lines... she wanted to rub herself all over him like a cat.

By the time he had completed his circle, his cock, which she had purposely ignored at first, was thickening, growing even stiffer under her gaze. Smirking at her again, he crossed his arms over his chest and cocked his hip. "Now are you happy?" he said, his voice a little rougher than before, and she loved that she could turn him on just by looking at him.

Instead of answering, she rolled onto her stomach and crawled to the edge of the bed, grabbing his hip and steering him closer. He only had time to suck in a sharp breath before she closed her lips around the head of his cock, rubbing the flat of her tongue against his frenulum.

He bit back a curse, his hands coming to tangle in her hair -- just threading through it, not grabbing her or steering her movements, and she was glad for that -- as she wrapped her hand around the thick base and carefully swallowed him down.

This was another thing she had always felt ambivalent about, but that was completely different with Clint. He held himself stock-still, his body trembling with the effort, and it she felt like she was worshiping his body now, returning the favor that he had so amazingly done for her. He was thick and hot in her mouth, his flavor salty on her tongue, the clean scent of his body musky in her nose, and she loved doing this to him. She loved his low rumble of pleasure, the gentle pressure of his hands in her hair, and if she weren't so eager to have him inside of her, she might have sucked him until he came down her throat.

She would save that for later, she decided.

"Oh fuck," he groaned, his grip tightening in her hair. "Fuck, Tasha, that's so good."

The nickname was a new thing, and she was surprised to realize that she liked it. It felt intimate, and maybe it was stupid for her to feel the bliss flooding her body about this new intimacy when she had his cock in her mouth, but there was something about it, something about the closeness that little name implied. 

She hummed a response, swallowing around him, and he tugged at her hair suddenly. "Shit, you've gotta stop," he gasped, and she released his cock with a final, solid suck.

"Too much?" she said with a sly grin.

Shaking his head down at her, he smoothed her hair back from her face and pulled her up onto her knees so he could kiss her again. She could taste a hint of herself on his lips, and his cock was wet and hot, trapped between their bodies. And his body... oh, she was irreversibly addicted to the feel of his skin against hers. She soaked him up like hot sunshine, arched into him as if she could somehow get even closer.

When he wrapped his arm around her waist and lowered her back onto the mattress, she looped her legs around his waist, shifting underneath him until she could feel the tip of him pressing into her, slipping in her wetness.

"Oh Jesus," he groaned, seeming to be fighting a battle with his own body to either pull away or sink down into her. "Wait, wait, honey, do you have a condom?"

Damn, she was so far gone that she hadn't even thought of it. It took a second for her to put her thoughts back into order. "Um... yes," she said, reaching for the drawer in her nightstand.

Plucking the packet out of her fingers, he ripped it open with his teeth. She ended up helping him roll the latex on because she had to touch him again and feel that heavy, hot weight in her hands. A shudder ran through his body at her touch, and she smiled coyly up at him, watching his brow furrow and his mouth fall open on a sigh.

"You're gonna have to stop that," he said with a breathless laugh.

"Or what?" she replied with a smirk.

"Or this is going to be over a lot faster than you'd like, pussycat."

He tugged her hand away, grinning at her noise of indignation at the nickname, and then he pressed her back down, sliding his hands up her calves and thighs where they were wrapped around him. "God, you're beautiful," he murmured, settling his weight down onto her and smoothing her hair back from her face.

Her breath caught in her throat, her heart thumping hard against her breastbone, and she slid her hands into his hair, pulling him down to her. Their lips met and parted, tongues stroking together, and a quiet mewl escaped her when the head of his cock rubbed against her. It was a little frightening how quickly they had gone from teasing to... to this, whatever this desperate intimacy was.

"Please," she breathed against his mouth, resting her hands against his collarbone. "Please, Clint, I need you..."

He moaned, kissing her deeply, and her breath caught in her throat when he shifted just right, slowly slipping into her.

It was so good; she couldn't believe how good it felt to feel him on top of her, inside of her, stretching her open. She normally would have balked at the position, but his body curved around hers, one strong arm wrapped underneath her shoulders and the other stroking her cheek, down her side to her hip and thigh and back up, tracing that circuit over and over, and it made her feel cherished, cared for.

They rocked slowly together, and she arched up at the feel of him moving inside of her, at the feel of his firm hand on her skin. "God, Tasha," he breathed, tilting her head back so he could press stubbled kisses against her throat. "God, you feel so good."

That nickname sent a shiver through her. She never let anyone call her anything but Natasha, but Clint was different. She would let him call her that because it was quiet and intimate and perfect, like a secret between them, something that only they knew.

Locking her ankles together behind his back, she began to move with him, meeting his thrusts as they increased their tempo. He made a sound of pleasure, a rumble in the back of his throat, and he held onto her hip, bringing his mouth back to hers for a kiss that made her toes curl.

"Wanna feel you come around me," he murmured.

With a whimper, she rolled them so she could straddle him, and she sank all the way down on his cock, moaning at how he filled her. He pulled her down for a kiss, holding her body against his, humming a reply when she began to roll her hips, grinding against him.

It was so good, so amazingly good that Natasha didn't know if she could take it. The pleasure building inside her body was too much, too huge for her skin to contain, and she felt like she might burst or shatter into a million pieces. She clutched at him, wrapping herself around his body, her cunt starting to pulse around him, her soft moans rising into a husky cry.

"That's it," he gasped, wrapping his arms tightly around her back. "That's it, baby, come for me..."

She shuddered in the circle of his arms, clenching down on his cock and calling out his name over and over. This time, though, he was there to hear it, to know how it sounded in the throes of her desperation, only wrought by pleasure instead of pain and fear.

Wrapping one hand around her back of her neck, he pulled her face close to his, swallowing her cries in a kiss. With a final shiver, she went boneless on top of him, and he rubbed her back as she came down, long, smooth strokes of his strong hands that strangely made her feel cherished.

Sucking at his bottom lip, she straightened out one leg so it lay alongside his and wrapped her arm around his waist, slowly rolling her hips so that he slid in and out of her again. He sighed softly, hand sliding down to grip her thigh, and he rolled them more onto their sides, his other hand tracing deliciously ticklish paths across her upper back.

"God, you feel so good, Tasha," he murmured, his teeth catching her lower lip.

She squeezed him tightly inside her on her next thrust just to watch the pleasure break across his face, his mouth falling open and his eyes rolling back. "Say it again," she purred, wanting to hear the sound of that private little name in his voice once more.

"Tasha," he breathed in response, flipping them so he could settle back between her legs, his weight pressing her down into the bed.

He rested his forehead against hers, gasping for breath between passionate kisses, and she wrapped her arms around him, holding him flush against her body. His hips fit perfectly between her thighs, and she pressed her heels against the backs of his legs, meeting his thrusts.

It was too good to last long, and soon he was clutching at her, cursing and groaning her name. She gasped at the heavy throb of his cock inside of her, mewled as he thrust as deeply as he could, and wrapped herself around him as he came.

He got up only to throw the condom away, and then he crawled back into bed with her, slipping between her legs as they lay on their sides. She closed her eyes, sighing when he stroked her flank, curling a little closer to him, and they just lay there together for a long, long while, silent but for the sound of their breathing.

"We don't have to be at work today, do we?" he mumbled into the quiet.

Natasha smiled a little, finding him with his eyes closed and his jaw slack with almost-sleep. "No," she answered. "I told Coulson we needed a few days off."

"Mmkay, good," he said, pulling her against his chest.

Those few days were spent mostly naked or nearly so, in her bed and on her couch and on the rug in the living room. There were a few memorable occasions in her cramped shower and one against the kitchen counter, but it was more than just sex to her. They talked for hours, safe in each other's touch and presence; he told her about his father and his brother, the crime he had fallen into because he didn't know anything else he could do, and she told him all that she could remember about the Red Room and the horrors she had been party to.

Those secrets were stashed away in the safety of their partnership or relationship, or whatever this was that they had started with that kiss.

* * *

Coulson found them at the firing range at HQ on Monday.

Clint was setting up the targets while Natasha picked up ammunition for her Glock and his P30, and she looked around to find Coulson standing a bit behind her. She nodded a greeting to him as the clerk disappeared into the store room.

"Everything all right?" he said, deceptively casual but Natasha could tell he knew why she had taken Clint and disappeared for those days.

She nodded. "Yeah," she said. "Things are better now."

"Can you do something for me, Natasha?"

They had apparently crossed a line at some point where she became Natasha to him and not just Agent Romanoff, and she wasn't quite sure when that had happened. "What is it?" she asked, intrigued by this sudden familiarity.

"Don't hurt him."

That wasn't what she had expected to hear, and she blinked in surprise. "He tends to jump into situations before he thinks them through," Coulson continued, "And he ends up hurt more often than not."

"I don't want to hurt him," she said quietly. "That's the last thing I want to do. I... care about him."

Something like relief and satisfaction washed over his face, and she suddenly realized that he thought of Clint as more than just a fellow agent; he thought of him as a friend.

"Good," he said, back to business. "Tell him you two have a briefing tomorrow morning at 9. And read up on the political situation in Bangui. You'll be helping with the embassy evacuation."

The clerk came back with two boxes of ammo, and Coulson nodded at her as he left the range.

Clint gave her a half-grin when she came back with their bullets, and she returned it as she loaded up her clip.

"First one to 220 buys Chinese for dinner," he said, popping a clip into his handgun.

"God, aren't you sick of Chinese food yet?" she complained. "We had it three times in the last three days."

"I never get sick of Chinese takeout, Nat."

She rolled her eyes at the new nickname, but she knew he saw the smile lurking at the corner of her mouth. He followed suit when she put on her earmuffs and safety glasses, and they settled into a comfortable routine.


End file.
